‘I am completely in the dark,’ Armand gasped. ‘How could you guess such a thing, uncle?’
‘Suppose I haven’t guessed it either, eh? What then?’
Armand’s look was clearly an interrogation, almost a prayer. He blinked his lids at the vivid flash of conjecture, and shook his head dejectedly against it. ‘You can’t mean—no, it cannot be that——’
The old man waggled a very sagacious head.
‘Marguerite!’ shouted the astounded youth, and there was a feeling of suffocation about his throat.
‘Suppose one foolish young person liked to believe she had a partner in her folly, eh, young man? What then?’
‘My cousin, too!’
‘And if it were so, eh? What then?’
‘Good God! uncle, why do you come and tell me this?’ The dazed lad began to walk about distractedly, and was not quite sure that it was not the room that was walking about instead of his own legs.
‘I think we may burn the sticks and daubs and brushes now, eh, young man?’ laughed the old man, waggling his stick instead of his head in the direction of Armand’s easel, and giving a contented vent to his peculiar chuckle. ‘Burn the baker’s blouse, and dress yourself like a Christian. When you are used to the novelty of a coat and a decent dinner, you may come down to Marly and see that giddy-pated girl of mine. But a week of steady work at the bank first, and mind, no paint-boxes or dirty daubers about the place. If I catch sight of any long-haired fellow smelling of paint, I’ll call the police.’